


Rosemary

by ifwednesdaywasaflowerchild



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Massage, Orgasm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-22
Updated: 2018-03-22
Packaged: 2019-04-06 08:51:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,221
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14053332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ifwednesdaywasaflowerchild/pseuds/ifwednesdaywasaflowerchild
Summary: When the week from hell catches up to Steve in the form of exhaustion and aching muscles, Natasha comes to the rescue with a hot shower, some rosemary oil, and a magic touch that just may offer Steve another form of relief.





	Rosemary

It starts with a grimace Steve's too sore, too slow, and too exhausted to conceal. It's after a lengthy sparring session with Nat, one that'd coincidentally been on the ass-end of a brutal week. Between missions, that nasty ringer Tony had seen fit to put him through for some reason Steve still didn't quite understand, and the general fanfare of being a 40's kid in the modern era - Captain America was feeling decidedly _un_ -Captainlike, and more like the 90-something, most thought him to be.

"Steve?" concern pours from her mouth like cigarette smoke; a rasp of warmth with all of the addictive properties of nicotine. He could get high off that voice, and all of its intonations and inflections. "You good?"

"Fine, think 'm just overtired." Steve scrambles to right his expression back into something like neutrality, even though he's failing miserably because that dip in his lower back is throbbing.

Natasha's eyes narrow, and rightfully so. It isn't often someone gets away with lying to her and, honestly, she never thought Steve would. Generally, she can take everything he says at face value. He's Catholic and a Brooklyn boy with Irish roots, the man is a human lie detector test, and honesty flows through him as easily as the blood in his veins. Well, that, and she likes to believe she's intimidating enough that he wouldn't ever actually try lying to her.

Until now, apparently.

"Hey," she grabs the back of his neck, fingers sinking into damp blonde hair (ooh, it curls when wet, that's something to file away for later contemplation), as she tugs him down closer to her, examining his drooping blue eyes and the overall paleness despite sparring with a black widow. "You're pale. We just hit the mats for over two hours, your face should be red, not white. What's wrong?"

This time, his face does turn bright red. Not from his workout, but from embarrassment that she could read him so easily. He fumbles for the basic English to explain his situation; "Just feelin' a bit sore is all."

"Steve." a drawl this time, one of warning, of danger should he attempt to lie to her, again. "Are you just sore or does something hurt?"

His chin dips into his chest. The weight of the week is crushing him, all tense arguments and bad guys moronically thinking they were good guys. Despite feeling some of that tension disappear with every slam of his large frame by a woman, he's pretty sure he could carry with one arm, it still contributes to the storm raging in his head and to the aches throbbing in every muscle in the large span of his back and shoulders.

"Hurts." he finally mumbles, eyes burning with tears.

"What hurts, Steve?" Natasha's hands frame his face, now, thumbing his cheekbones, coaxing more than just a few syllables from him.

"Everything."

To see them, to observe the height difference, it would be easy to think that Steve is the protective one, and to a certain extent, you'd be right. That said, when he dips into moods like this where everything hurts and he feels like he's being crushed beneath a weight he never asked for - that's when Natasha's instinct for murder comes out to play, and right now, she could actually paint the walls red with the ferocity boiling her blood.

"Okay." she tilts up onto her tiptoes - spectacular balance, leftover from the actual ballerina training the Widow program used to cover up the lethal weapons they were creating - and catches his mouth in a kiss. "Let's go home."

Steve just nods, far too exhausted and exposed to bother with words. Agents scramble to get out of the way when they see Steve and Nat together. Having Coulson's favorite and Fury's favorite team up made for a lethal combination and the danger in Natasha's stance implied that they had every reason to fear her.

The elevator's electronic bell announcing their arrival barely fazes him, his heavy frame slumped against the back wall. Natasha has to practically drag him out and into their apartment, where she proceeds to march him straight into the bathroom and start the shower.

"Strip." her eyes explore his frame; the tautness of his spine, the rounded slump of tired shoulders, and the general pain that seemed to inflame every part of him. "I want you to stay in this shower until I come back for you."

A vague grunt of acknowledgement as he shuffles under the steaming spray, a low, deep groan scraping out of his throat at the relief it offers while Natasha appears to apparate through the steam, out of the bathroom to gather up the supplies she needs.

...

If it was just pain relief, she sought for him, she would probably opt for eucalyptus oil only, but he is exhausted and needs the warm comforts of lavender and rosemary. While others might mix them, she's never been able to balance the fragrance ratios, and not have one overpower the other, but she's fairly certain that using rosemary first will offer the pain relief he needs and the lavender will help relax him enough to let him rest.

While the bottles of oil warm to a comfortable temperature in a bowl of hot water, she changes into a pair of shorts and one of his t-shirts, tied above her belly button, and steps back into the cloud of steam to retrieve him from the shower. Natasha gives him a small towel for his upper body and wraps a larger towel around his slender hips, tucking it in just enough to keep him decent.

"You don't need clothes, just yet." her intelligent jade eyes flick between his mouth and the sharp line where tan skin disappears into the white terry-cloth wrapped around his waist. "I have something in mind."

Steve's eyebrows arch heavenward but he (wisely) chooses to say nothing, instead following her into their bedroom, and obeying her firm instruction to lay on his stomach on the bed, getting as comfortable as possible. When he's settled into the mattress, arms tucked under the pillow, the broad expanse of his back spread before her, Natasha begins her work with a palmful of rosemary oil.

"Smells like my old apartment." Steve laughs into the pillow.

"I thought your folks were Irish Catholic, not Italian?" Natasha's face scrunches in confusion, hands lingering above his back.

Not unfamiliar with the safe way to go about this, she spends several minutes acclimating him to the temperature of the oil, the texture of it, and the feel of her hands soaked with it. She uses a facsimile of the strokes he uses with a paintbrush to achieve the desired effect, feathering out across his shoulder blades like wings, applying the faintest hint of pressure up his spine with her thumbs, and palming slow circles into his lower back until she feels him sink a little further into the mattress.

"We are." he breathes, blue eyes sparkling with nostalgia. "But, there was a elderly woman, Dora, who lived next door. Roman Catholic, came straight from the depths of Italy, made pizza Sam would kill for. Took care of me when Mom got sick, took care of Mom until she..."

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to..." pry? No, that wasn't it. She hadn't meant to bring up painful memories, but she wasn't prying.

"It's alright, Nat." he brushes her off, with a soft smile. "It's been a long time since I remembered aintìn Dora."

"Aintìn?"

"Irish Gaelic for aunt." Steve explains patiently. "Of course, Dora was a sixty year old Roman Catholic from Vatican City, so she expected Italian. I had to say three Hail Mary's, just to keep her from taking a switch or a wooden spoon to my ass, the first time."

"So, that isn't a stereotype." Natasha laughs.

"No, every Mom has a wooden spoon. Even Bucky's Romanian mom." his voice is softer, not as strained and tight as it was earlier when he struggled to spit out more than a few syllables. "Pretty sure it comes as part of the, 'My Kid is a Little Shit' package."

"I can't imagine little Steve ever needing a wooden spoon to his ass." but, she can so imagine it, not that she'd ever tell him. Really, she just likes to hear him talk about his childhood. It wasn't very often he was as open as he was being, right now.

"They don't spank you with them." he giggles - actually giggles, which she finds hysterical and adorable. "No, Nat, wooden spoons are for throwing at the little shitheads. We were a pretty awful bunch. I never needed Bucky to get into trouble. I could find it on my own."

Natasha can't help but laugh at that. That, she knows for sure. It's a mistake people often make when Steve does speak of his past. That he never got into trouble before Bucky, that Bucky was the trouble-maker, but it only took Natasha half an hour of knowing him to figure out that - no, Bucky didn't find trouble but Steve sure as hell knew where to look.

Silence envelopes the room; a daze of sweet nostalgia mixing pleasantly with the heady scent of rosemary. There's no need for further conversation, until the tender touches shift into circles of pressure and the ache in his back deepens for a fraction of a second.

"This is pettrisage." there's that voice, again, all smoke and heat, dizzying him, making him glad for the solidity of the bed beneath him. Her hot, slick palms move in circles, fingers rubbing, kneading knots of tension that have curled around his spine, until they dissolve. "You can make noise, if you want. I won't make fun of you."

But, he chooses to remain silent until she sets to work on that throbbing, stubborn mess of a knot in his lower back. His hands clench into tight fists in the sheet underneath the pillow, teeth sinking into his lower lip from the pain and the pressure; it feels like a fire spreading in his muscles but her touch feels so good, he could roll his hips down into the mattress until he's exploding from the pleasure-pain scorching his entire body.

"Nat!" it's a feeble whimper, and hardly the reaction he wants to share, but it's all he can come up with at the moment - it hurts but feels so good all at the same time.

"I'm sorry." Natasha murmurs, leaning down to kiss his shoulder. "I'm sorry. I'll stop, you can rest."

"No, keep going." Steve mumbles around a mouthful of pillow; face pushed into fabric and feathers, cheeks flushed, and eyes glassy. "It's a good kind of pain."

A wary obedience puts her back at Steve's lower back, easily palming the dip of it, digging the heel of her hand in, and turning her wrists in half-circles until she feels the tension release. As it would happen, being overly tired and vulnerable and then being stimulated by such a deep tissue massage brings out a certain shamelessness in Steve.

His slender hips roll down into the mattress, searching for friction and heat and that explosive release this is ultimately building up to. She chooses not to mention it, wanting him to relax in whatever way he was able; her goal is pain relief, something he's needed for far longer than he's bothered to mention, if the stubborn cords of muscle knotted in his back are any indication.

She's never found rosemary oil to be all that erotic, but then, she supposes it isn't the oil so much as his body finally receiving the attention it needs and (she's a bit cocky, sure, but it's probably true) his attraction to her that sends the blood south. She continues on with her massage, kneading, rubbing, and working his back over until his entire body gives in and he succumbs to the inevitable, hips stuttering hotly as it slowly crawls up his spine.

Steve is a bit wanton.

Large hands fisted in the sheet, face smashed into the pillow, his back arches up, and something incoherent but ridiculously obscene is bit into the fabric beneath his head. All smooth curves and clean lines and glossy oiled skin; shards of pain and pleasure slicing through him like a hot blade. When he's cursed his way through it, he lets his hips drop back onto the bed, and his entire body go limp.

She wipes the oil from her hands with the bit of towel not soaked in the sticky remnants of his orgasm and climbs onto the bed to sit next to him. "Hey," Nat's quiet and soft, keeping her voice to keep him still and relaxed. "Feeling better?"

"'uch." his own voice is wrecked; hoarse and wet and the words slur together. "'re magic, Nat."

Still safely ensconced in his cocoon of calm repose, and with the ache in his back gone, he shuffles closer, nudging his face into her hip and slinging an arm across her thighs. She's warm and soft and she still smells like rosemary and her hands feel just as good on his scalp, shuffling through his damp hair. Natasha is safe and familiar and when he breathes her in, he finally feels like he can sleep.

So, he does.


End file.
